Darkness pressed in upon her; a sour smell permeated the air. The other two, the soldier and her friend from the pleasure house, spoke in soft tones. Something about the wisdom of setting a wooden beam across the door. Valara hardly cared. The exhilaration that had carried her from the prison through Osterling’s streets, to that strange confrontation with the soldier and its aftermath, had vanished completely. Her bones were like water and a dull ache centered between her eyes. Hunger, no doubt. Thirst. Later, she might remember to be terrified. Right now it was too much trouble.The emerald’s voice vibrated deep within her. It sang without words, a stream of notes in a minor key, like a ship’s ropes keening in the wind. Daya, the oldest, the emerald. Rana was the ruby, which Leos Dzavek had reclaimed. She couldn’t recall what the third jewel called itself. In older lives, she had known them all. Known them even longer ago, when the three jewels were one.Before my brother divided them.No, that was the life before they were brothers.
